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Wednesday May 27, 2015

When it comes to customer-facing work, modern field service management solutions deliver proven benefits for communications providers. Here’s a look at how CSPs can power even greater results by applying the same field service management best practices to network maintenance field service operations.

As competition increases in the industry, many communications
services providers (CSPs) turn to field
service management technology to boost customer satisfaction and power
efficiencies in order to differentiate their brand.

As a field service solutions provider, we’ve seen many CSPs
significantly increase productivity,
improve customer satisfaction ratings, and reduce operational costs by
leveraging modern
field service solutions in their customer-facing operations. Now, we’re
seeing interest from CSPs in extending these benefits to the network
maintenance operations.

Here’s how some of the best practices we’ve learned in working
with CSPs in their customer-facing operations translate into the network
maintenance side of their business.

Automate, then optimize

The days of manual processes and automation-only field service management are
behind us, and CSPs are leading the way. Organizations are taking automation a
step further – using modern field service tools with pattern recognition and
predictive capabilities to optimize their processes.

Get the right technician, with required skills and
parts, to each job faster and reduce mean time to repair (MTTR)

As a result, customers are happier and CSPs can maintain
compliance with SLAs while driving operational efficiencies. Automation alone
can save time on planning and coordination; however, predictive field service
optimization drives new levels of productivity and cost reduction.

Put the customer first,
and give them control

It may sound simple, but a little can go a long way when it comes to your
customers. Deploying a field service solution that gives all stakeholders –
customers, call center representatives, service managers and field technicians
– a real-time view of what’s going on in the field and leverages predictive
analytics equips CSPs to:

Provide shorter appointment windows by accurately
predicting when a technician will arrive and how long a job with take to
complete

Ensure on-time technician arrivals every time

Communicate appointment status updates proactively

In doing so, CSPs keep customers in the loop and reduce costs
associated with inefficiencies, such as unnecessary trips to customers’ homes.

The same idea can be applied to managing the field technicians
doing network maintenance and repair. The visibility that modern field service
tools provide can help CSPs:

Complete routine maintenance on-schedule to prevent
downtime

Be transparent with customers when issues occur,
providing accurate information about when the issue will be resolved

This approach enables CSPs to positively impact the
relationships they have with customers, even in a situation that is ordinarily
perceived negatively – for example, being kept waiting for internet service to be
restored, or a cable service outage to be resolved on game day.

Empower your field
resources

Collective knowledge and the skills of the entire team are
important resources for field service teams. Modern field service solutions
with collaboration capabilities allow CSPs to empower their mobile workforce,
enabling technicians to:

Easily connect with their peers to complete jobs the
right way, the first time

Quickly identify nearby technicians and transfer work
to an available tech when upcoming appointments are in jeopardy of missing
their service windows

Keeping the network up and running is a critical part of
business for CSPs. Field service solutions with integrated mobile collaboration
tools enable field technicians to:

Complete network maintenance jobs faster

Ensure work is done right the first time, improving
uptime

For example, if a technician arrives to a job and discovers a
bigger problem that he’s not sure how to fix, he can connect to nearby technicians
via the field service solution’s integrated collaboration tool. One of them
might have the right skills to complete the repair work, which helps resolve
the issue faster.

CSPs have an opportunity to apply the same best practices
learned from customer-facing work to their network-facing operations to drive
additional benefits. With modern field service solutions, CSPs can amplify the
efficiencies, customer satisfaction and cost-savings, and propel their business
further to stay ahead of the competition.